If you’re ever downtown at 5PM standing on any corner of Grant Street, count how many cars, trucks, busses, bicyclists and pedestrians speed, squeeze, run or jaywalk on a red light. Almost weekly, I see people, in, on and out of vehicles, cheat death because there’s no way they are going to sit tight and wait for green.
It shocks me. In fact, sometimes I can’t stop my maternal instinct from bursting out with verbal pleas to “Wait!” or “Be careful!” Once, I started to grab the arm of the lady standing next to me when I thought some jaywalking pedestrians were about to be mowed down by a bus driver who was hell bent on getting to the other side of Grant, even though the light was a bright, brilliant red before his front tires hit the intersection.
When you expect to witness a gruesome disaster, I guess it is instinct to need to clutch someone’s arm to remain standing. Fortunately, everyone got through the intersection alive and I stopped myself just in time from leaning on a stranger.
Rush hour is one thing. That’s the Monday through Friday witching hour when ordinarily nice people become impatient, ornery and aggressive so they can get home a few minutes earlier. But it was mid-afternoon in the suburbs when I thought another traffic tragedy might unfold before my eyes.
I was sitting at a red light, waiting to turn left. Ahead, on the other side of the intersection, was a young mother jogging as she pushed a double stroller, with, I presume, two babies strapped in. It was a sunny, fall day. Traffic was light. As the mother approached the crosswalk, the light had just turned green for her to cross, but a big, delivery-type truck, approaching from the side street, showed no signs of slowing down, even though his light was red.
I had a green light, too, but when I heard the truck driver gun the engine, I realized he wasn’t going to stop.
I willed him to stop.
“Stop! Stop! Are you kidding me?” I shouted from inside my car.
As the truck sped through the red light, there were a few horrible seconds where I couldn’t see the jogger with the stroller. I didn’t know if she had stopped or not. I cringed, terrified that she might have trusted the truck driver to stop on the red light.
Fortunately, after the truck sped through, turning left at the intersection, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw that the young mom and her babies were fine. She had stopped in time and was waiting on the sidewalk for the truck to clear the corner.
A few years ago, I recall reading about another young mother who was not so fortunate. She was hit by a car and killed just a few blocks away. I don’t remember her name, but she was pushing a double stroller, too.
People, please slow down. Stop. I don’t care if you’re on Grant Street or Main Street. It’s better to save a life, rather than a few minutes.
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photo credit: <ahref=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/79874304@N00/2635898654″>Driving Dilemma: What Do You Do When The Light Turns Red AND Green?</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>